And having washed, with silken towels dry.
Next fifty handmaids in long order bore
The censers, and with fumes the gods adore.
Then youths, and virgins twice as many, join
To place the dishes and to serve the wine.
The Tyrian train, admitted to the feast,
Approach, and on the painted couches rest.
All on the Trojan gifts with wonder gaze;
But view the beauteous boy with more amaze,
His rosy-coloured cheeks, his radiant eyes,
His motions, voice, and shape, and all the god's disguise: Nor pass unpraised the vest and veil divine,
Which wandering foliage and rich flowers entwine.
But far above the rest, the royal dame
(Already doomed to love's disastrous flame),
With eyes insatiate and tumultuous joy,
Beholds the presents and admires the boy.
The guileful god, about the hero long,
With children's play and false embraces hung;
Then sought the Queen: she took him to her arms,
With greedy pleasure, and devoured his charms.
Unhappy Dido little thought what guest,
How dire a god, she drew so near her breast.
But he, not mindless of his mother's prayer,
Works in the pliant bosom of the fair,
And moulds her heart anew, and blots her former care : The dead is to the living love resigned,
And all Æneas enters in her mind.
Now, when the rage of hunger was appeased, The meat removed, and every guest was pleased, The golden bowls with sparkling wine are crowned, And through the palace cheerful cries resound. From gilded roofs depending lamps display Nocturnal beams, that emulate the day.
A golden bowl, that shone with gems divine,
The Queen commanded to be crowned with wine,
The bowl that Belus used, and all the Tyrian line.
Then silence through the hall proclaimed, she spoke :
"O hospitable Jove? we thus invoke,
With solemn rites thy sacred name and power:
Bless to both nations this auspicious hour-
So may the Trojan and the Tyrian line
In lasting concord from this day combine.
Thou, Bacchus, god of joys and friendly cheer,
And gracious Juno, both be present here;
And you, my lords of Tyre, your vows address
To Heaven with mine, to ratify the peace."
The goblet then she took, with nectar crowned
(Sprinkling the first libations on the ground),
And raised it to her mouth with sober grace,
Then sipping, offered to the next in place.
'Twas Bitias whom she called, a thirsty soul,
He took the challenge, and embraced the bowl,
With pleasure swilled the gold, nor ceased to draw
Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw.
The goblet goes around; Iopas brought
His golden lyre, and sung what ancient Atlas taught:
The various labours of the wandering moon,
And whence proceed the eclipses of the sun;
The original of men and beasts, and whence
The rains arise, and fires their warmth dispense,
And fixed and erring stars dispose their influence.
What shakes the solid earth, what cause delays
The summer nights and shortens winter days.
With peals of shouts the Tyrians praise the song;
Those peals are echoed by the Trojan throng.
The unhappy Queen with talk prolonged the night,
And drank large draughts of love with vast delight;
Of Priam much inquired, of Hector more;
Then asked what arms the swarthy Memnon wore,
What troops he landed on the Trojan shore;
The steeds of Diomede varied the discourse,
And fierce Achilles, with his matchless force.
At length, as Fate and her ill stars required
To hear the series of the war desired :
"Relate at large, my god-like guest," she said
"The Grecian stratagems the town betrayed;
The fatal issue of so long a war,
Your flight, your wanderings, and your woes declare.
For since on every sea, on every coast,
Your men have been distressed, your navy tossed;
Seven times the sun has either tropic viewed,
The winter banished, and the spring renewed."
Æneas relates how the city of Troy was taken, after a ten years' siege, by the treachery of Sinon and the stratagem of a wooden horse. He declares the fixed resolution he had taken not to survive the ruins of his country, and the various adventures he met with in the defence of it: at last, having been before advised by Hector's ghost, and now by the appearance of his mother Venus, he is prevailed upon to leave the town, and settle his household gods in another country. In order to this, he carries off his father on his shoulders, and leads his little son by the hand, his wife following him behind. When he comes to the place appointed for the general rendezvous, he finds a great confluence of people, but misses his wife, whose ghost afterwards appears to him, and tells him the land which was designed for him.
ALL were attentive to the god-like man,
When from his lofty couch he thus began:
"Great Queen, what you command me to relate
Renews the sad remembrance of our fate;
An empire from its old foundations rent,
And every woe the Trojans underwent :
A peopled city made a desert place;
All that I saw, and part of which I was :
Not even the hardest of our foes could hear,
Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear.
And now the latter watch of wasting night,
And setting stars to kindly rest invite.
But since you take such interest in our woe,
And Troy's disastrous end desire to know,
I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell
What in our last and fatal night befell.
"By destiny compelled, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war;
And by Minerva's aid a fabric reared,
Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared;
The sides were planked with pine, they feigned it made For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side,
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide;
With inward arms the dire machine they load,
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
(While fortune did on Priam's empire smile),
Renowned for wealth, but since a faithless bay,
Where ships exposed to wind and weather lay.
There was their fleet concealed. We thought for Grecce
The sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
The Trojans cooped within their walls so long,
Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
Like swarming bees, and with delight survey
The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay;
The quarters of the several chiefs they showed :
Here Phoenix, here Achilles made abode,
Here joined the battles, there the navy rode.
Part on the pile their wondering eyes employ
(The pile by Pallas raised to ruin Troy).
Thymætes first ('tis doubtful whether hired,
Or so the Trojan destiny required)
Moved that the ramparts might be broken down,
To lodge the monster fabric in the town.
But Capys, and the rest of sounder mind,
The fatal present to the flames designed,
Or to the watery deep; at least to bore
The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore;
The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
With noise say nothing, and in parts divide.
Laocoon, followed by a numerous crowd,
Ran from the fort, and cried from far aloud:
'O wretched countrymen, what fury reigns?
What more than madness has possessed your brains?
Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?
And are Ulysses' arts no better known?
This hollow fabric either must enclose,
Within its blind recess, our secret foes;
Or 'tis an engine, raised above the town,
To o'erlook the walls, and then to batter down.
Somewhat is sure designed, by fraud or force;
Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.'
Thus having said, against the steed he threw
His forceful spear, which, hissing as it flew,
Pierced through the yielding planks of jointed wood,
And trembling in the hollow belly stood.
The sides transpierced, return a rattling sound,
And groans of Greeks enclosed come issuing through the
And had not heaven the fall of Troy designed,
Or had not men been fated to be blind,
Enough was said and done to inspire a better mind;
Then had our lances pierced the treacherous wood,
And Ilian towers and Priam's empire stood.
Meantime, with shouts the Trojan shepherds bring
A captive Greek in bands before the king;
Taken, to take; who made himself their prey,
To impose on their belief, and Troy betray;
Fixed on his aim, and obstinately bent
To die undaunted or to circumvent.
About the captive tides of Trojans flow;
All press to see, and some insult the foe.
Now hear how well the Greeks their wiles disguised,
Behold a nation in a man comprised.
Trembling the miscreant stood, unarmed and bound;
He stared and rolled his haggard eyes around;
Then said: 'Alas, what earth remains, what sea
Is open to receive unhappy me?
What fate a wretched fugitive attends,
Scorned by my foes, abandoned by my friends.
He said, and sighed, and cast a rueful eye-
Our pity kindles, and our passions die.
We cheer the youth to make his own defence,
And freely tell us what he was, and whence;
What news he could impart we long to know,
And what to credit from a captive foe.
"His fear at length dismissed, he said: "Whate'er
My fate ordains, my words shall be sincere;
neither can nor dare my birth disclaim;
Greece is my country, Sinon is my name;
Though plunged by fortune's power in misery,
'Tis not in fortune's power to make me lie.
If any chance has hither brought the name
Of Palamedes, not unknown to fame,
Who suffered from the malice of the times,
Accused and sentenced for pretended crimes,
Because the fatal wars he would prevent:
Whose death the wretched Greeks too late lament;
Me, then a boy, my father, poor and bare
Of other means, committed to his care,
His kinsman and companion in the war.
While fortune favoured, while his arms support
The cause, and ruled the counsels of the court.
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